Buckle up as we dive into the intricacies and challenges of navigating the licensing board. I'll reveal how my own not-so-great experience (spoiler alert - there's a happy ending) empowered me to better understand critical rules and regulations that shape the professionals we aspire to be today. Not only will you be privy to the nitty-gritty of the licensing board, but also the less daunting aspects that help you stay in the know - like the rules review process and the option to sign up for email updates.
No supervisor is immune to complaints, so we dissect just how to handle them when they come. Drawing from my personal encounter, we shed light on the necessity of a formal remediation plan, regular evaluations, and fostering a collaborative relationship with supervisees. And there's more! Christina DeLuna, board administrator with the Texas LPC board, will be offering a free webinar in January, where she will be talking to participants about what's in store for 2024. So tune in, soak up all the wisdom, and let's make a bigger impact in our community together!
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
Buckle up as we dive into the intricacies and challenges of navigating the licensing board. I'll reveal how my own not-so-great experience (spoiler alert - there's a happy ending) empowered me to better understand critical rules and regulations that shape the professionals we aspire to be today. Not only will you be privy to the nitty-gritty of the licensing board, but also the less daunting aspects that help you stay in the know - like the rules review process and the option to sign up for email updates.
No supervisor is immune to complaints, so we dissect just how to handle them when they come. Drawing from my personal encounter, we shed light on the necessity of a formal remediation plan, regular evaluations, and fostering a collaborative relationship with supervisees. And there's more! Christina DeLuna, board administrator with the Texas LPC board, will be offering a free webinar in January, where she will be talking to participants about what's in store for 2024. So tune in, soak up all the wisdom, and let's make a bigger impact in our community together!
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
So, finally, the big day came and my mentor and friend, Dr Judy Detrude, who is actually the mastermind behind the Kate Walker training 40 hour LPC and LMFT supervisor training, she went with me to this board meeting and it was pretty yucky and I didn't like it. There was no part of it I would ever want to do again, but it has a happy ending. This is the Texas Counselors creating Badass Businesses Podcast with Dr Kate Walker, where I teach you, texans and non-Texans alike, the latest research based information to hit your income goals, stay out of trouble and make a bigger impact in your community. Join me and let's fill the gaps in access to mental health care and create a counseling career you'll love. Let's get to work.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Texas Counselors creating Badass Businesses, where it's all about working smarter, not harder. And here's your host, dr Kate Walker, who never backs down from a challenge.
Speaker 1:Welcome to episode 59 of the Texas Counselors creating Badass Businesses Podcast. Now, I don't want the title of this to scare you, because you know I'm always going to give you solutions when I tell you scary stories, especially when it comes to rules, because you're too important to lose to not knowing the rules. Be sure to listen all the way to the end, though, because I'm hosting a free webinar in January with the amazing Christina DeLuna, board administrator with the Texas LPC board, and I know you're going to want to hear everything she's got to say about what's coming up in 2024. All right, let's get to work. So again, I'm Dr Kate Walker. Welcome to your Tuesday training. If you are watching me live, hello. If you are listening to me on a podcast episode, don't worry. Even though it's a live training, I will talk you through and walk you through everything that I am showing the folks who are live, and if it's something that you're doing, if you're watching a pre-recorded training which, unfortunately, probably all of you are you can always tag me and Texas Counselors creating bad-ass businesses. You can tag me in the Step it Up group. You can tag me pretty much anywhere if you are in one of our groups and I will answer your questions. So, yes, I want you to ask questions.
Speaker 1:This is a great week because it's scary stories about the licensing boards. So let's get into that, because I'm always going to give you solutions. I'm never, ever going to leave you with just scary stories and drop the mic. You are too important to lose because you were afraid to become a supervisor or you're afraid to take on supervisees. Your community needs you and rural Texas needs you. Underserved Texas needs you. So I tempt you with titles like Scary Stories, but then you know I'm always going to give you a solution and a way to fix stuff.
Speaker 1:So, first things first, let's talk about things with the licensing board that are definitely not scary. Right, number one those folks are all volunteers. I'm going to say that again. They are volunteering their time to meet, to serve on the subcommittees, to travel to Austin or to go wherever they go to have their meetings, to devote time to reading the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages of rules and complaints and all of those things to make sure that we have a license that we can be proud of, because that's what a license is. A license means you have permission to do a thing. There's a licensing board that backs you up, a set of rules, a complaint process that protects the public. You know I love my coaches out there, I love you guys, but it's not a license. You can have a certification to do a thing, like if I got a driving certificate that says I know how to drive, but until I have my driver's license I do not have permission to drive. So our licensing board serves a vital process and purpose for us and makes us the professionals that we are. Another what's not scary is something called the rules review process, and I wrote that down and I was like, by the way, there's also the rules creation process. So if you want to get into the rules and read that, I'm not going to go into that, but every time the board comes up with the rule, it's usually because a licensee proposed it. But there's also 30 days, a 30 day time period where we licensees can comment and they do read every single comment before they put something into rules or ratify it.
Speaker 1:Another thing that is not scary is the lunch and learns. So yeah, the board, with the establishment of Bhek, started doing the super cool thing where you know, once a quarter, maybe they do a lunch and learn. They'll give you a CE for attending. It's virtual, they have a topic. They'll answer your questions. I've attended several and it's so cool because in the chat people are posting questions and they're literally answering in real time. So not just the board either staff members, the attorneys, the head of staff. It's a really wonderful process so that folks stay connected to their licensing board.
Speaker 1:Not scary, right? And then, last but not least, I am going to show you something. What I'm going to do folks who are listening is I'm going to share my screen so that you can see the behavioral health executive council website and folks who are listening. What I'm showing everyone is the hot link for email updates. One of the things that is definitely not scary about our licensing board is our ability to sign up for email updates. I cannot tell you how many times I'm stalking those threads out there on Facebook and all of the mental health groups, the professional groups and people are like I didn't hear this rule, I didn't know. Are we already supposed to be? Oh, my goodness. And you know, I feel that. I feel that, but that's the old days right Before this. The super cool thing, because when you sign up for email updates which I do. That's how I get all the cool information that I pass on to you guys. You literally just put in your email your first name, your last name, and you've write down, or you click the box with the list that you would like to join. It is that easy. So, folks who are listening, all I did was click the hot link on the BeHec website and then I'm showing all of the boxes that folks can fill in and then, of course, you hit submit and bam, you are on an email list that you'll actually appreciate. So I'm going to stop to share and back to scary things.
Speaker 1:So when we talk about scary things, mostly what comes to mind are complaints. So complaints number one, or the problem number one, is something we saw and came to the forefront a few years ago in the LPC Association, since posed comments to the board right before the board passed the rule that said associates could in fact, have their own business, their own practice, and one of the things that came to light was this idea that I'm afraid to talk to my supervisor because they've said they won't sign off on my hours. So I call that supervisors holding your hours hostage. This is scary. It's not okay. It's an area that is just full of potential to have a complaint filed against you supervisor, because if your supervisor is working and they're seeing clients, then they're coming to supervision, they're attending supervision with you, then that is something you simply sign off on. You're attesting, you're like a notary public. You're simply noting a fact. Yes, my supervisor did the work. Yes, they showed up. Yes, we talked.
Speaker 1:Thus, you know, making a supervision happen and you're simply witnessing the fact that this happened. Is it's documentation that it happened? When you use that signature as a threat and you say you know what, if you don't get your notes caught up, I'm not gonna sign off on your hours. Okay, does that mean they still come to supervision? Or you're gonna hold supervision but you're not going to witness it, or you're not going to Then write down that you did go through every single client with your supervisor and you are aware of their actions. You're gonna shoot yourself in the foot, find not signing off, that you are a witness and a party to that supervision session. Right, see, that doesn't make sense for anybody. And so when you tell a supervisor, yeah, I'm not signing off on your hours until you dot, dot, dot. Basically, what you're trying to do is get out of the next bullet point, which is very scary, that I'm going to talk about. You're trying to get out of remediating them all. Right.
Speaker 1:Our board rules lpc and lmft state you must document a formal remediation plan in the supervisor's file. I'm going to use my words before you terminate. Now the rules themselves. There's one in the lpc board. There's one in the lmft set of rules that goes into, you know, this must be a plan that you identify areas that your supervisor is not meeting expectations. You must document this plan in the supervisor file. So when I see supervisors holding their signature hostage Because their supervisor is failing to meet expectations, I can almost guarantee you I've got a supervisor who has not done a formal evaluation. They have no evidence at all whether the supervisor has met expectations, exceeds expectations or did not meet expectations. They are noting a problem, so they're jumping on it, which is good, but they're not assertive enough because they're not filing the remediation plan with the supervisor. Now, supervisors are not taking you to task here. I promise I get this. It's really hard.
Speaker 1:In the third bullet I'm going to talk about, there are lots of things that can happen with the remediation plan, because One of the things we heard when kinder dalrymple, an attorney in austin, texas, who works with these licensing boards, she told us in our last meeting of the Texas supervisor coalition you know, the remediation plan may not be working like the licensing boards hoped. That it would right, because in an ideal world this remediation plan would be like a wonderful moment for everyone and kumbaya. We're all collaborating again and supervisee has course corrected. You know rainbows and unicorns.
Speaker 1:What most often happens, unfortunately, is we have supervisors who hop. Right, they'll just say, okay, see you, I'll go find another supervisor, I mean even within an agency. Right, they may just say you know what? I'm canceling Contract, our state paperwork and I'm going to go with this other supervisor, so that supervisee hopping becomes a problem because, you know, will that other supervisor then contact you and say, oh, by the way, did my brand new supervisor have a remediation plan with you?
Speaker 1:I mean part of what we do at k walker training in the Texas supervisor coalition. We try to establish best practices so that supervisors new supervisors get into the habit of checking references, of asking for a release of information, to talk to the previous supervisor or previous professor, something like that, right when you get this brand new supervisor out of the blue. So that's also what research into remediation is really we're finding. Right, when I was in Denver this week presenting at the ASIS conference with my colleagues from the University of Texas, I'll pass so that's something we're finding again and again and again. And you've got to communicate with previous supervisors, professors, et cetera, et cetera. Well, it's hard to do that without your supervisor's permission. It's hard to do that without a release of information. You want this to be collaborative and you don't want it to be a surprise. So, at the very beginning of the supervisor relationship, making sure that you make that part of that intake or that orientation, and we talk about that with the OER triad, the orientation evaluation, remediation triad. So what makes this remediation scary? And I'm gonna steer you to episode 52 of Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses podcast and I go into detail about how to construct a remediation plan. But dot, dot, dot. Remember there is nothing out there that tells you how to do a remediation plan, very little research. And the boards don't specify, they simply say you must do that right. So scary thing is, remediation often doesn't work like the board and we wish that it would, because supervise these, hop, you can have a relationship rupture and the solution is orientation, evaluation, remediation. Go to episode 52 for more info on best practices for creating an effective remediation plan. All right, last thing I thought I would share because it was super scary for me.
Speaker 1:I had a complaint filed against me by a supervisor that I fired, and it was one of those situations. I was a brand new supervisor and this person was doing things they shouldn't be doing, and so I was sending an email and, hey, please don't do X, y and Z. And they would come to supervision and we would document okay, I won't do X, y and Z anymore. And then they would do PD and Q and they would say, hey, please don't do PD and Q. We've come to supervision. Document, don't do PD and Q. Well, eventually, I don't know E, f and G, l, m and O, p. I got tired of it and I fired this person.
Speaker 1:Well, there were also some other red flags. This person said their previous supervisor had died. They had not died, so I didn't bother to reach out, because why would I reach out to a dense supervisor? Right? Okay, I have learned so much since then. Right, how to create a formal remediation plan, how to include a release of information. I've learned to reach out and maybe even Google a little bit If something like that comes up. We're no, no, no, please don't contact my previous supervisor, they're dead. I'm gonna do a little extra homework. So I've learned a lot since then, but that didn't help me.
Speaker 1:When the complaint came through the mail and I'm looking at this going oh my goodness, I'm being punished because I fired someone who refused to follow my supervision directives right and they were doing things that were not in the public's best interest. So that was in the battle days when complaints were taking two to three years. So I made a huge file, snail, mailed my response to the board certified mail, got my attorney through my wonderful malpractice insurance and waited and waited, and waited. So finally the big day came and my mentor and friend, dr Judy Detrude, who is actually the mastermind behind the Kate Walker training, 40 hour LPC and LMFT supervisor training. She went with me to this board meeting and it was pretty yucky and I didn't like it. There was no part of it I would ever want to do again. But it has a happy ending. The board agreed that my termination was warranted. The complaint was dismissed.
Speaker 1:I took a big deep breath and Dr Detrude and I went back to the office and constructed a lot of the resources that we're trying to put into your hands now, things that you can stay on top of with just a little bit of foresight, that orientation, hosting a great contract, making sure that you have a regular evaluation schedule, having a remediation plan with specific, measurable, trackable goals with consequences. Hello, love and Logic. Parenting Anyone one, two, three, magic, anyone right. It has to have a consequence that is very clear and that this process is collaborative. Nothing about this is secret or gotcha. These folks I'm talking about our supervisees spent a lot of money and time. They've got a passion, just like you do. You've been there, you have been in their shoes, where you're trying to figure it out level one, level two, and you're just not sure, and some days are great and some days are terrible. We don't want these folks to leave the business. We need them, the whole country needs them. But I focus on Texas, right, I focus on getting providers into underserved areas, and so the scary part is we might lose somebody who's an amazing professional because we supervisors fail to follow steps that could have resulted in ready drumroll. Please, collaboration, this person's going to be your colleague, so don't let any of this be secret.
Speaker 1:When the board gets involved, when somebody files a complaint, it's due to a relationship rupture or something egregious right and I'd mentioned this in episode 52, where mediation goes out the window if your supervisor has done something egregious or harmed a client and there's immediate action that needs to be taken right. But the whole goal of these scary stories about the board is to help you understand. The board is approachable. These situations are mitigatable. You can do this badass. You can do this. In fact, you have to do this. So become a supervisor, step in, don't lean in. What are we saying now? I don't know, but it's scary, of course. But there are ways to mitigate the fear, to mitigate anything that might hurt you, your license, your supervisor or the public. And hey, that's what I'm here for.
Speaker 1:So if you're listening to me on the podcast, I now have a cow dog in my lap, and if you saw my last Instagram post, you know this guy did a great job of helping me not fall behind when my son and I decided to do a trail that had just been dumped on by six inches of snow. So in my post I said I will be your footprints so you can follow me and your cow dog to make sure you don't get left behind. I'm Dr Kate Walker. Thank you so much for watching today or listening. Thank you so much for listening to today. I'll see you next time.
Speaker 1:All right, I want to make sure that you know how to sign up for that webinar in January with Christina Delano, because I know you want to make sure that you have all of the updates for 2024. And it's so easy to do. Just go to katewalkertrainingcom. Forward slash free webinar and grab your free ticket and share it with a friend. It's free and you get one CE. So if you're looking for continuing education, that's super cheap. You can't do better than free, right? So grab your ticket today.
Speaker 2:I'm Dr Kate Walker. Thank you so much for listening to Texas Counselors creating badass businesses. Thank you to Ridgely Walker for her lovely voiceovers at our introduction and do me a favor when you get a second. Please like, share and subscribe and write us a review. That's really how we get picked up by other RSS feeds and we get this information out to the mental health badass who need it. Thanks again and keep saving the world with excellent therapy. You.